Well, they seem very happy out on our back deck. This hot, humid weather the past couple of days has caused them to go a bit wild, in fact.
The vine in this first photo is at the far right in the pot.
I was concerned that it seemed to be attracting aphids a week or so ago. Then I read that a simple recipe, sprayed on the plant, deters aphids, so I set to work mixing up a batch:
Cut up an onion, add a squashed garlic clove or two, add a few cups of water, and let this "brew" in the sun for a few days.
What you'll have once the brewing is sufficient is an extremely strong-smelling onion/garlic mixture.
I strained out the onion and garlic pieces, poured the liquid into a spray bottle, and gave the top sweet potato vine a good dose of it.
The rest is history, at least for now. Not an aphid in sight, and I check several times a day. I think I sent the aphids packing.
In this second photo is the "sibling" to the vine at the top. It's doing extremely well, also, and is even trying to make friends with the coleus plants in the pot to the left of it.
For some reason I couldn't seem to control myself when I passed by the sweet potatoes at the supermarket about three weeks ago. Before I knew it, one potato had found its way into my shopping cart, and it came home with me. It has been sprouting fast and furiously, as you can see in the bottom photo. It's interesting that this sweet potato is sending out so many sprouts, whereas the first sweet potato had all it could do to produce three measly sprouts. There are, in fact, eleven sprouts on this latest potato, and it might not even be done sprouting yet.
My plan is to have ONE sweet potato vine growing in the house this winter. I've already bought a new plant stand for it. What I'll do with the ten others, I don't know. I don't think I could bear to kill them.
Plant them in your flower beds and garden and let nature do the rest. I suspect you'll grow some sweet potatoes before a freeze gets them, but maybe not. Your growing season is pretty short. Perhaps your first potato was a little early in nature's cycle and this last one is just doing what it's supposed to do in this season, grow. Will be interesting to see what a potato does in the winter. Who knew potatoes knew when to grow and when to be dormant? Fun experiment.
ReplyDeletetoo funny, maybe you could put out a sign and sell them...lol!
ReplyDeleteJust let them all grow as one big jungle.
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